Rafael Nadal Upset by Lucas Pouille in Fourth Round of U.S. Open

After four grueling hours spent fending off a relentless adversary who refused to submit, Rafael Nadal saw the ball exactly where he wanted it, practically on a platter and ready to be plucked.

It was 6-6 in the fifth-set tiebreaker at the end of one of the most compelling matches of this United States Open. Nadal, the No. 4 seed, had already rejected three set-point attempts from his pesky opponent, the No. 24 seed, Lucas Pouille.

Now Nadal had one of his favorite shots tantalizingly before his eyes, an approach forehand of the kind he has drilled into the other court for a winner countless times in hundreds of matches throughout the years.

But this time, Nadal brushed up on it too much, and the ball hit the net.

“Was a big mistake,” he said.

But there was still a chance. Nadal had been destroyed in the first set, and he had come back. He lost the third set, too, and blew a break in the fifth set, and there he was in a fifth-set tiebreaker.

If Pouille, a 22-year-old Frenchman looking for the biggest win of his life, had not had the nerve to convert his other three match points, perhaps he would fail to do it here, too.

But under the pressure of momentous stakes, Pouille summoned the nerve needed. He won the next two points to earn a thrilling 6-1, 2-6, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (6) fourth-round upset of Nadal in 4 hours 8 minutes.

Nadal had been gaining momentum coming into the match. He had not lost a set in three matches. His quarter of the draw was wide open — except for Pouille, that is.

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Rafael Nadal battled Lucas Pouille for more than four grueling hours before Pouille eked out a win. “I lost an opportunity,” Nadal said.CreditDon Emmert/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“I lost an opportunity to have a very good event here,” Nadal said. “I am sad for that.”

In the last few draining sets, the fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium, announced at more than 23,000, did not necessarily blow the new roof off its foundations during the match. But they left a noisy impression.

“Sometimes I couldn’t even hear myself when I was saying, ‘Allez, allez, allez,’” Pouille said. “Sometimes you can’t even hear yourself.”

Pouille, who is playing in just his 11th major tournament, had never reached the third round until this year at Wimbledon, where he went to the quarterfinals.

But he has long been considered a rising prospect in France, and this year, he is beginning to collect on his promise.

“I think because, mentally, I’m stronger,” he said. “Physically, I’m stronger. That gave me a lot of confidence before the match. I knew if I wanted to win that, it’s not going to be like three sets, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. It would be long.”

By steeling himself for the slog, Pouille was able to withstand Nadal’s comebacks and match him stroke for stroke. Indeed, in the final tally, each player won 156 points.

In the fifth set, Nadal broke Pouille’s serve in the first game and was up, 4-2. It seemed as if Nadal had his opening. But anyone expecting the more experienced Nadal — with 14 Grand Slam titles on his résumé, including two Opens — to sweep Pouille away was shocked. Pouille broke back to make it 3-4.

Nadal said his experience alone had not been enough to make the difference in that game.

“The problem is arrive to 6-all on the tiebreak of the fifth,” he said. “I should be winning before.”

Later in the same stadium, No. 1 Novak Djokovic pounded the 21-year-old Kyle Edmund of Britain, 6-2, 6-1, 6-4, to set up a meeting with No. 9 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals. It was the first time in his last three matches that Djokovic was able to complete a match after his opponents withdrew in the previous two for physical reasons.

Tsonga is one of three French players to reach the quarterfinal stage, but Pouille is the most surprising.

For Nadal, 30, the loss capped a mixed season and ended, for now, his hope for a third Open title and a 15th Grand Slam championship. His last title came at the 2014 French Open, where he matched Pete Sampras with 14 Grand Slam titles over all.

He pulled out of this year’s French Open after his third-round match because of an injury to his left wrist. At the time, it was unclear when he would be able to return. He made it back for the Olympics, where he lost in the bronze-medal match to Kei Nishikori of Japan and won a gold medal in doubles.

He played only two matches at the Western & Southern Open, but he stormed through his first three matches at Flushing Meadows, dropping only 20 games in three straight-sets victories.

He had hopes of going deep. Instead, it is Pouille, and not Nadal, who will play 10th-seeded Gaël Monfils in an all-French quarterfinal match. Monfils brushed aside the Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis, 6-3, 6-2, 6-3.

Monfils is not only playing well, he is one of the more entertaining players on tour, and fans love to marvel at his athletic ability. In the first week of the United States Open, he has given them a lot to see.

He had a wrestling match with an on-court clock; he practiced in the midst of a downpour; and he hit a jumping shot between his legs when there was no pressing need for it.

Then on Sunday, he did something even more unusual. He pretended to tie his shoe in the middle of a point in his match against Baghdatis.

“To be honest, I have no idea what happened,” he said. “Sometimes, those points don’t mean anything to me. I don’t know. I just lose it.”